The Eyetooth Man

Thanks to last night, my sleeping schedule is now completely out of whack. It's almost four in the morning, and although I switched off ICQ ten minutes ago, under the pretext I was off to bed, I have since realized that I'm not in the least bit dozy. I slept in very late today--didn't get up till half past three. I wasn't feeling too bad when I woke up, so I got a lot of work done. I cleaned up the rest of my apartment, including the dusty kitchen, and got most of yesterday's greyscale painting out of the way. I've just got to add the little details in now, the footery bits. There's a horse in need of a mane and tail, and a gunbelt that needs guns. I've got the general shapes blocked in, but I've got to add definition.

I had odd dreams again last night. I don't remember much about them, except that everything was very brightly-coloured. There was a huge, garish rainbow in there somewhere, and every time I tried to do anything, it was impossible for one reason and another. The sea was in my dreams, and there were seagulls everywhere. Maybe I was dreaming of my childhood. I used to spend my summers by the sea. Some summers, anyway. My father and I used to go looking for shells, razor shells, cowries, limpets, and the occasional sea urchin. I liked sea urchins, although every time I found a good one, it seemed to get broken. I found a huge red one, once. It was perfect. It didn't even have any spines left on it. It was the best sea urchin I ever found. Then a cat--I can't remember whose cat--vomited on the floor. I slipped in the vomit, and the sea urchin got in the way as I fell. Needless to say, that was the end of my perfect red sea urchin.

It's funny--I hardly ever remember the people from my dreams with any degree of clarity. Just the places, and, for some reason, the lighting conditions. Although, I did once have a nightmare that broke those rules. Hell, it broke just about every rule in the book. This was what I wrote about it later that night, on an Internet forum:

"I just woke up from the most hideous nightmare of my life! It seemed so real that when I awoke, I found myself leaping off the bed and running for the door, scrabbling to get out of the apartment. I was in the hallway before I realized it had been a dream, and I was now awake.

"It started out as most of my nightmares do: I woke up and went out to the computer room, and realized it was dark. I'm afraid of the dark. One can bump into things in the dark. Bones can get broken. I even sleep with the lights on--all the lights, not just a night light--so I'm safe. But in the dream, no lights were coming on anywhere. I decided to go in the bathroom and see if the bright lights above the mirror, at least, would work, but when I opened the door, I saw someone in the dimness. There was a giant man standing there, someone monstrously tall and broad. I just had time to scream before he knocked me back with such force that I collapsed like a sack of potatoes. He talked to me for a minute, then picked me up by the hood of this horrid old fuzzy coat I sometimes wear to bed. He lifted me entirely without effort, and carried me back into my bedroom, which, of course, was almost completely dark.

"I've never had such a horribly detailed dream as this. I could even feel the coat pinching under my arms when he picked me up.

"Anyway, he had me on my bed, and the sheet had come halfway off the mattress, the way it does. It's one of those fitted sheets, and a little too small for my bed. I was trying to get a look at his face, but he kept pushing down my head. He had me completely pinned. I'd never been more terrified, but he wasn't doing anything to me, really. He was just pinning me down. I said something about wanting to see his eyes, and--well, stop reading right now, if you're squeamish. This is disgusting.

"Instead of showing me his face, he took my finger and poked it into his eye. Except, there wasn't an eye, just a horrible, deep socket. He forced my finger all the way into his head--I could feel brain--and then the eyesocket BIT me! Hard! There were teeth in his eyes. He started biting me with his eyes, and also with his real mouth, and tickling my ribs with his hand. I fought for my life. He wasn't breaking my skin, or killing me, or anything. It was just the most ugly, uncomfortable sensation in the world.

"I escaped from him at one point, somehow, and stumbled out of the bedroom. In the hallway, I tripped over the takeout box I'd put there last night, meaning to throw it down the garbage chute in the morning. (Our building has this rule: you can't use the chute after nine PM, in case it disturbs people. It's loud.) So there I was, crumpled in my hallway in utter defeat. I remember thinking there was no way this could be a dream, that the box would never have been there in a dream. I could still feel an uncomfortable throb where he'd bitten the base of my right index finger.

"I lurked there in dread for a moment, but then the man caught me again, and we were back to the struggling, biting thing in the bedroom. I remember thinking it would be a relief if he'd just do what you'd ordinarily expect a scary male intruder to do and get it over with--it was that horrible.

"I woke up still struggling. When I threw the cover off, I was completely convinced it was HIM I threw off. I dashed madly for the door, jumping over the takeout box this time. That was when I realized all the lights were on, and I was wearing a tracksuit, not the horrible old fuzzy coat. It HAD been a dream, after all.

"This, though, this is disconcerting: my finger still hurts. Faugh. I'd give either one of my hands to be able to forget that dream. I got a knife and hunted all round my apartment when I realized I was awake--I was that certain someone was in. Absolutely positive. I've checked behind the couch twich as I've been writing this post, and when I saw my shadow, I thought it was him."

I think that one took the cake (and the plate, and the tablecloth, and the table it was sitting on), as far as strangeness goes. It was hideous at the time, although it doesn't seem so horrifying with a few weeks' worth of ordinary dreams between me and it.

I hope I dream about something good tonight. I'd like to dream about going skating, I think, or something like it. Something outdoors; something active. Something I can't really do, but would very much like to. Tomorrow, I have a lot to do: I've got to get more done on my video, finish that greyscale painting, and answer all the e-mails that have accumulated in my inbox over the course of this week. But at the moment, I'd very much like to sleep.

(I had chicken and rice for dinner tonight, and although it was tasty, it wasn't very filling. I'll probably end up dreaming about food. Bloody brilliant.)